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May 20, 2012

“Shureiw Mureiw Teherai”… This verse line in Kashmiri may
seem to be very trivial at first but these are the lovely magical words that used
to magnetize a stampede of overwhelmingly uptight crowd, consisting of
desperate kids, men, women or any riffraff stroller passing by. These words for
rejoicing the modest treat of Kashmiri fried rice, commonly called as Teher,
used to be a temptation call from decades. Alas from the last few years it declined
to resonate in the streets of Kashmir with the same vivacious fervor.

On scrutinizing the stanza
lexically, it becomes clear that Shuir in Kashmiri means kids and Teher
means the fried rice. And thus the call is openly inviting kids for the treat
but funnily enough everyone on hearing the call despite of the age, sex,
color,(I am not sure about the religion here) throngs the doorstep originating
the invitation call. The ages old custom of preparing Teher at home and
then distributing it on the streets to the people passing by was a wellspring
of brotherhood or I should say a symbol of Kashmiriyat. A trivial
attempt in tracing back the roots of the cult of Teher in Kashmir
reveals that the culture started as a part of religious sanctity, with people
of faith participating vivaciously in thanksgiving. But the religious certainty
of this blissful culture failed to convince my wisdom since there are other
colossal controversial beliefs regarding the same as well. Some sects are
supporting it with good reasons like charity and thanksgiving where as others
come up with their arguable refusals. Whatever is its precision, it has
developed all the way long into a fully flourished custom in Kashmir and that’s
a fact.

The memoirs of Shureiw Mureiw
Teherai are not very old. I vividly remember when I was a kid, the call
used to stimulate the adrenaline rush in me and others alike. The caller,
typically a crier Kashmiri woman, used to step out of her home with a big
cauldron of freshly prepared ‘Teher’ and
then started calling people in an
earsplitting Kashmiri tone…Shureiw Mureiw Teherai. The devotees on
hearing the tangy call appeared before the caller with their bare hands open,
as if in supplication, and enjoyed the Teher with their naked hands
while the others used to run for their respective homes for bringing containers
to collect their share. Well the recipe was not carrying any magical ingredient
as such; nevertheless the relief it used to provide to the people passing by is
far admirable. Plus the way the call used to attract the crowd is remarkable.
It felt like the preparer of the Teher has put some magical elixir to
attract the crowd much the same way as the storybook pied piper tuned to magnetize
all the petite rats along.

Despite of so much enthusiasm and
highly enthralling involvement, the custom is somewhat losing its edge. Rightly
said that time changes, so do we and hence did the custom of Teher. The
high brows, considering it a meager job to distribute Teher on their
doorway, have devised other more modern methods of thanksgiving. They find it
as an orthodox custom not suiting their “modern” standards. As a result
nowadays we rarely hear the call of “Shureiw Mureiw Teherai”. But luckily enough there are some special
occasions like Muharram and Eid-e-milad(SAW) when there is a maximum prospect of Teher in Kashmir.
In addition people mostly cook out Teher as a thanksgiving for any casual
good news as for someone’s wellbeing. Hilariously someone passing the extremely
hard-fought examination of 8th or 10th standard also counts
for one good reason of preparing Teher in Kashmir. Well that’s enough to
a make a cat laugh…Ha-ha.

Although the custom of Teher
is diminishing to iota but the memoirs entangled with it are worth not less
than gold. So next time you hear the reverberations of “Shureiw Mureiw Teherai”
in Srinagar streets, better stop and rejoice the tangy appetizing Teher.
May be the good old days of your childhood will get revitalized.